“Brian’s body. The ME ruled he was killed prior to Sunday morning, and put on ice.”
“I heard the DA… some comment…” Lyons’s voice trailed off. He gazed at them dully. “I don’t understand.”
“She played you.”
“No…”
“There wasn’t any mystery man at Tessa’s house Sunday morning, Shane. In fact, Brian was most likely killed Friday night or Saturday morning. And as for Sophie…”
The burly trooper closed his eyes, didn’t seem to be able to swallow. “But she said… For Sophie. We were doing this… Had to hit her… To save Sophie…”
“Do you know where Sophie is?” Bobby asked gently. “Have any idea where Tessa might’ve taken her?”
Lyons shook his head. “No. She wouldn’t harm Sophie. You don’t understand. There’s no way Tessa would harm Sophie. She loves her. It’s just… not possible.”
D.D. regarded him gravely. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than we thought. Sophie’s gone, and given that you’re now an accomplice to murder, looks to me like Tessa Leoni screwed you over good.”
25
Bobby and D.D. didn’t arrest Lyons. Bobby felt it was more appropriate to let internal affairs kick into gear as state investigators could squeeze Lyons more effectively than the Boston police could. Plus internal affairs was in a better position to identify any links between Lyons’s actions and their other major investigation-the missing funds from the troopers’ union.
Instead, Bobby and D.D. returned to BPD headquarters, for the eleven p.m. debrief with the taskforce.
The falafel had done D.D. a world of good. She had that gleam in her eye and hitch in her step as they pounded up the stairs to the homicide unit.
They were closing in now. Bobby could feel the case building momentum, rolling them toward an inevitable conclusion: Tessa Leoni had murdered her husband and child.
All that remained was putting a few last pieces of the case in place-including locating Sophie’s body.
The other taskforce officers were already seated by the time D.D. and Bobby walked through the door. Phil looked as jazzed as D.D., and sure enough, he went first.
“You were right,” he burst out as D.D. strode to the front of the room. “They don’t have fifty grand in savings- the entire sum was withdrawn Saturday morning. The transaction hadn’t been posted when I got the initial report. And get this-the money had also been withdrawn twelve days prior, then returned six days after that. That’s a lot of activity on fifty grand.”
“How was it finally taken out?” D.D. asked.
“Bank check, made out to cash.”
Bobby whistled low. “Couple of pennies, available as hard currency.”
“Male or female closed the account?” D.D. asked.
“Tessa Leoni,” Phil supplied. “Teller recognized her. She was still in uniform when she made the transaction.”
“Setting up her new life,” D.D. said immediately. “If she ends up under investigation for killing her husband, joint assets might be frozen. So she got out the big money first, squirreled it away. Now, how much do you want to bet that if we find that fifty grand, there will be another quarter million sitting with it?”
Phil was intrigued, so Bobby related the state police’s current investigation into embezzled funds. Best lead-the account had been closed out by a female wearing a red baseball cap and dark sunglasses.
“They needed the money,” Phil stated. “Did a little more digging, and while Brian Darby and Tessa Leoni look good on paper, you won’t believe the credit card debt six-year-old Sophie has run up.”
“What?” D.D. asked.
“Exactly. It would appear Brian Darby opened half a dozen credit cards in Sophie’s name, using a separate PO box. I found over forty-two grand in consumer debt, run up over the past nine months. Some evidence of lump sum payments, but inevitably followed by significant cash advances, most of which were at Foxwoods.”
“So Brian Darby does have a gambling problem. Putz.”
Phil grinned. “Just to amuse myself, I correlated the dates of the cash advances with Brian’s work schedule, and sure enough, Sophie only withdrew large sums of money when Brian was in port. So yeah, I’m guessing Brian Darby was gambling away his stepdaughter’s future.”
“Last transaction?” Bobby asked.
“Six days ago. He made a payment before that-maybe the first time the fifty grand was taken out of savings. He paid off the credit cards, then he returned to the tables and either won big, or borrowed big, because he was able to replace the entire fifty grand to savings in six days. Wait a minute…” Phil frowned.
“No,” the detective corrected himself. “He borrowed big, because the latest credit card statements show significant cash advances, meaning in the past six days, Brian went deeper into debt, yet was able to replace fifty grand to his savings. Gotta be he took out a personal loan. Maybe to cover his tracks with his wife.”
Bobby looked at D.D. “You know, if Darby was into it big with loan sharks, it’s possible an enforcer might have been sent to the house.”
D.D. shrugged. She filled the taskforce in on Trooper Lyons’s revised statement-that Tessa Leoni had called him Sunday morning, claiming a mysterious hit man had kidnapped her child and killed her husband. She was to take the blame in order to get her child back. Shane Lyons had then agreed to assist her efforts by beating her to a pulp.
When she finished, most of her fellow investigators wore similar frowns.
“Wait a minute,” Neil spoke up. “She called Lyons on Sunday? But Brian was dead at least twenty-four hours before then.”
“Something she neglected to tell him, and yet more evidence she’s a compulsive liar.”
“I traced Darby’s Friday night call,” Detective Jake Owens spoke up. “Unfortunately, it went to a prepaid cellphone. No way to determine the caller, though a prepaid cellphone suggests someone who doesn’t want his calls monitored-such as a loan shark.”
“And it turns out Brian suffered two recent ‘accidents,’ ” Neil offered. “In August, he received treatment for multiple contusions to his face, which he attributed to a hiking mishap. Let’s see…” Neil flipped through his notes. “Worked with Phil on this one-yep, Brian shipped out September through October. Returned November three and November sixteen was in the ER again, this time with cracked ribs, which he said he received after falling from a ladder while patching a leak on his roof.”
“For the record,” Phil spoke up, “Sophie Leoni’s credit cards were all maxed out in November, meaning if Brian had accrued debt, he couldn’t use her lines of credit to pay it off.”
“Any withdrawals from the personal accounts?” D.D. asked.
“I found a major one in July-forty-two grand. But that money was replaced right before Brian shipped out in September, and after that, I don’t see any more significant lump sum transactions until the past two weeks.”
“The intervention,” Bobby commented. “Six months ago, Tessa and Shane confronted Brian about his gambling, which Tessa had figured out due to the sudden loss of thirty grand. He replaced the money-”
“Winning big, or borrowing large?” D.D. muttered.
Bobby shrugged. “Then he moved his habit underground, using a bunch of phony credit cards, with the statements mailed to a separate PO box, so Tessa would never see them. Until two weeks ago, when apparently Brian Darby fell off the wagon, this time withdrawing fifty grand. Which maybe Tessa found out about, which would explain its rapid replacement six days later.”
“And why she might have withdrawn it Saturday morning,” Phil pointed out. “Forget starting a new life; seems to me Tessa Leoni was working pretty hard to save the old one.”
“All the more reason to kill her spouse,” D.D. declared. She moved to the whiteboard. “All right. Who thinks Brian Darby had a gambling problem?”
Her entire taskforce raised their hands. She agreed, added the detail to their murder board.
“Okay. Brian Darby gambled. Apparently, not successfully. He was in deep enough to run up debt, commit
